Injection-molded aircraft canopies and windshields offer tremendous benefits to aircraft in cost, weight, and impact tolerance. A major cost in this manufacturing process is the injection mold itself. Surfaces of canopies and windshields are finished to a quality similar to an optic lens in order to prevent pilots from being subjected to visual distortion.
The precise optics for canopies and windshields are built into the injection mold. The injection molds are lapped or polished by hand, section by section, using a diamond plated lapping material. Hand polishing or lapping an injection mold takes several man-years to accomplish. Thus, lapping or polishing is very costly. Hand polishing or lapping also does not always ensure that the precise, optic surface finish quality has been met.
Therefore, there exists an unmet need to reduce the cost and increase the accuracy of lapping or polishing.